Unmarked term
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host is unmarked, but hostess is morphologically marked for femaleness. The mark is not necessarily visible or audible: in the pair horse/mare, horse is the more general, unmarked term, while mare is marked for femaleness. In the pair cow/bull, cow is unmarked, while bull is marked for maleness. - Tom McArthur, Concise Oxford Companion to the English Language [1]